Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon
by Hoppin Along
Summary: My guess at how the Hogwarts motto came to be.


This story is set in the Harry Potter universe which sadly is not mine.

The four founders of Hogwarts were sat at the head table in the Great Hall. Godric Gryffindor was, as usual overflowing with a new idea he'd just had. Helga Hufflepuff was attempting to rationally persuade him that it wasn't quite as good an idea as he'd thought. Rowena Ravenclaw had used her well known intelligence and had cast a silencing charm around her head so that she couldn't hear them. Salazar Slytherin cast his eyes around the hall and mentally sighing. He reflected that even with all the students gone and only the four of them remaining at the school Gryffindor still possessed the ability to make the room feel too crowded.

When ten minutes later Godric had still not been talked out of whatever ridiculous scheme he had come up with this time Salazar decided to inject the much needed sense into whatever inane conversation the pair were having. Unfortunately as he turned his head to look at them Gryffindor took this as a sign of interest and started talking to him.

"Have you heard Sally?" he said, "Apparently there's a dragon taken residence in one of the caves north of Hogsmeade!"

Salazar gritted his teeth in annoyance before replying, "Firstly my name is not Sally and secondly why on earth should I be interested?"

Godric beamed filling Salazar with a deep sense of foreboding, "Because I'm going to get rid of it of course!"

Salazar raised an eyebrow and sneered. Sensing however, that this problem was slightly above his head he turned to his other side and addressed Rowena. She didn't respond. "Rowena!" He tried again. Still no change. In the end he had to poke her repeatedly to get his attention. She picked up her wand and waved it at her head before turning an impatient gaze on Salazar.

"What?" she demanded.

"Rowena," started Salazar, "I need you to help me talk Gryffindor out of attempting to fight a dragon."

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The sun was high in the sky and a group of intrepid adventurers were making their way up a steep mountain path north of Hogsmeade. In the lead was a tall dark haired man who was so excited he was bouncing up and down while imploring the three others to hurry up. Said three others appeared to be mentally compiling lists of other places they would prefer to be – being tortured by sadists featured prominently on all of them.

Finally the group was just around the corner where the dragon was reported to be. Gryffindor turned around and began solemnly addressing his troops.

"Friends, today we face a fearsome foe and you should bear in mind that our mission may not be successful. But when we leave here –"

"If we leave here." muttered Salazar resentfully.

"When we leave here," emphasised Gryffindor, "we shall do so as heroes. I am sure that once we have fully explained the situation to the dragon he will completely understand the need to relocate. After all, we wouldn't want him scaring the children would we?"

Not noticing the shock on the faces of the others Gryffindor turned around, squared his shoulders and walked around the corner. The three left behind exchanged glances, looked at the bend Godric had just disappeared around and looked at each other again. Finally Helga started walking towards the corner. Rowena and Salazar followed, already cringing in anticipation of whatever stupid thing Godric was going to do next.

Rounding the bend they were greeted by the sight of a rather plump green dragon. It was lying on it's back, wings spread out on the ground beneath it and it's rather pathetic looking chicken legs sticking straight up. Coming to stand behind Godric they joined him in staring at the horrifying yet strangely hypnotic scene.

Refusing to be daunted Godric stepped forward and cleared his throat. Behind him the other three gave each other looks that clearly read 'We let him teach children … unsupervised?'

"Excuse me?" tried Gryffindor again, "I was hoping to have a word with you?" Salazar closed his eyes briefly attempting to convince himself this wasn't happening. It didn't work. Worse still when he did open his eyes it was to see that Godric was approaching the dragon, did the idiot have a death wish? Godric then poked the dragon. It snorted and a spurt of smoke came out of it's nose.

Godric chuckled and turned to the others. "You know what," he said, "I think it's ticklish." He turned back around and to Salazar's never ending disbelief, began tickling the dragon.

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Three founders and a mummy were sat at the head table in the Great Hall.

"I daresay that's a lesson we need to pass down to others." said Helga.

"If you are talking about not tickling sleeping dragons Helga then that is obvious to everyone except the very stupidest and to be honest the world needs less idiots anyway!" replied Salazar bitingly.

"I agree with Helga." said Ravenclaw mildly, cutting across the muffled protestations of the mummy.

Salazar sneered, "And how are you going to do that, use it as the school motto?"

The mummy fell silent and Helga's eyes lit up. Before she had a chance to say anything though Rowena cut across her. "No. I refuse to have the school motto being that ridiculous. We'd be a laughing stock!"

"We're already a laughing stock," said Salazar snidely, "Gryffindor is on the staff."

"No! There is no way that I am standing in front of the students and announcing that our new school motto is 'Never tickle a sleeping dragon'" protested Rowena.

"Then don't." suggested Helga mildly, "Say it in Latin, that way by the time they work out what it means they will be too late to laugh while you're standing."

"I still don't…"

-------------------

After much discussion, debate and a vigorous round of will not / will to (which Salazar won) it was decided that the school motto would indeed be 'Never tickle a sleeping dragon' although Rowena insisted on doing the translation herself, for some reason she did not trust Slytherin.

Godric Gryffindor never again tickled a sleeping lion. (Although he did tickle a sleeping hippogriff, which ended almost as badly. He wanted that to be added to the school motto as well but at that stage Rowena informed him that if she had to translate every stupid thing he'd ever done into Latin she'd never have another free moment again.)


End file.
